University of Georgia: Student Faces Charges for Complaint about Parking Services

On August 17, 2010, University of Georgia graduate student Jacob Lovell e-mailed UGA Parking Services with a joking complaint about what he perceived to be its poor job of providing parking for scooters. Parking Services reported his e-mail to UGA’s judicial affairs office. On September 3, 2010, Associate Dean of Students Kimberly Ellis notified Lovell that the university had charged him with &quot;disorderly conduct&quot; and &quot;disrupt[ing] parking services when he sent an email to them that was threatening.&quot; After FIRE wrote UGA President Michael F. Adams, explaining that Lovell’s grievance was protected by the First Amendment and that administrators could be held personally liable by a court for such a violation of students’ constitutional rights, UGA finally withdrew the charges, but Lovell had been under the threat of significant punishment for a month.